Besieged by Reviews

We had a couple of GI path seminars on Wednesday and a really cool pancreatic surgery seminar today. I think I am about the only sucker in my whole class who is still doing the assigned readings for seminars. I brought up something in PBL that I had read in the articles for today's seminar, and I swear the rest of my group was looking at me like I had two heads. It turned out to be good that I had read that article though, because it helped us understand the case. We also had a domestic violence screening communication class on Wednesday. It wasn't bad, but I thought they should have done it about a year ago. I've been doing domestic violence screening on my clinic preceptor's patients since about halfway through last year.

We were supposed to have a Dean's Dinner on Wednesday, but it got cancelled since most of my classmates couldn't go. The first years had their Dean's Dinner last week though, and I got permission to go. As it turns out, my research preceptor was the speaker, so I was glad that I got to be there. I had seen part of his talk before last fall at the conference, but some of it was new.

Today was also the first pathology review session for Step 1. I went to this one, but I don't think I am going to go to any more review sessions. I really didn't get very much out of it, mainly because I have not started studying at all for the boards yet. Being suddenly bombarded by so many review sessions is making me feel a little stressed out and overwhelmed. There are reviews being set up for everything: path, pharm, micro, anatomy, embryo. But right now, I am more worried about getting my summative portfolio done than I am about studying for Step 1. This is the portfolio that will be used by the promotions committee to decide if I am promoted to third year. I feel a little bad about not attending the review sessions, because the faculty are really going out of their way to try to help us prepare for Step 1. I don't want to seem ungrateful. It's just that I am not ready to start studying for Step 1 yet!